Macrophages, or large phagocytes, are important in wound healing, fighting infection in a variety of immune responses in warm blooded animals including man. They promote the wound healing process in various ways. For example, macrophages engulf and destroy bacteria and degenerating tissue. They also kill intracellular pathogens. They also appear to secrete and release factors which promote the growth of new collagen. Macrophages are found in the blood stream and in various tissues including the liver and the peritoneum.
Macrophages can be specifically activated as a part of the cellular immune response by various materials including immune complexes, compliment components, lymphokines and tuftsin. Other macrophage stimulation agents include lipopolysaccharides (LPS), muramyl dipeptide, physiologic cation complexing agents such as certain pyran copolymers and other polycarboxylates, and certain ionophores.
Administration of a macrophage stimulating agent to a host animal increases the activity of macrophages in the host, so that they more effectively perform their various functions. These various functions are known in the art, and some of these functions have been described above. In particular, administration of a macrophage stimulating agent to a wound site in a host animal stimulates macrophages in the host so that they more effectively perform the various healing functions, some of which have been discussed above.
The majority of known macrophage stimulators are macromolecular in nature. Most of them are naturally occurring materials or derivatives of naturally occurring materials, and most are quite expensive. Pyran copolymers are among the few known synthetic macrophage stimulating agents.
Quadrol, N,N,N',N'-tetrakis(2-hydroxypropyl)etylenediamine is a known compound having the structural formula (I-a) ##STR2## Quadrol can be synthesized by reacting 1 mole of ethylenediamine with 4 moles of propylene oxide, as described for example in U.S. Pat. No. 2,697,113 to Lundsted et al. Quadrol is known to complex a number of polyvalent cations such as Co.sup.2+, Cu.sup.2+, and Zn.sup.2+ and has been used as an analytical reagent for the determination of trivalent manganese (Mn.sup.+++) in solution. Quadrol is often used as a cross-linking agent and catalyst in the synthesis of polyurethane foams and membranes.
It is an object of this invention to provide an inexpensive and non-toxic agent having macrophage stimulation activity.
It is a further object of this invention to provide wound dressings which incorporate an inexpensive, non-toxic macrophage stimulating agent.
According to this invention, macrophage cell activity in a warm blooded animal is promoted by administering Quadrol to said animal.